Thin semiconductor chips are obtained by thinning finished processed semiconductor wafers having standard dimensions, the semiconductor wafers having a thickness D of 300 μm to 1500 μm and a diameter of a few tens of centimeters (cm). The processed semiconductor wafer to be thinned has a passivation layer on its active upper side. The passivation layer has uncovered metallic contact areas which must not be damaged during thinning in a thinning apparatus. The thinner a semiconductor wafer becomes, the more critical becomes further processing of the thinned semiconductor chips of the thinned semiconductor wafer to form a semiconductor component, so that at semiconductor chip thicknesses of 30 μm a critical thickness is reached which cannot be undershot since semiconductor chips of this type are no longer self-supporting and have a critical fracture behavior. At these minimal thicknesses of less than 30 μm, it is not possible either to achieve handling for application onto the wiring substrate or to achieve fitting of flip-chip contacts without considerable losses in terms of the production yield.
There is nevertheless a need to reduce the chip thickness further, especially as thinner semiconductor chip laminae can also improve the electrical performance. Thus, with extremely thin semiconductor chips it is possible to significantly reduce turn-on times and turn-off times of power diodes and power transistors if power modules with semiconductor chips having a thickness of less than 30 μm can be integrated to form power modules. However, the critical fracture behavior of such thin semiconductor chips appears to be an insurmountable obstacle, so that handling of such thin semiconductor chips has not been possible heretofore.